Religious Persecution In America

Religious Persecution In America

Our country was founded on religious persecution. Those early Puritans came seeking a place to worship. Only they didn’t afford others the same blessing. Note the Salem Witch Trials, and the popular classic book “The Scarlet Letter.”

During the religious revivals of the early 19th century, tent evangelists would move from city to city accusing all other sects as being wrong.

More than a century ago, now, it was Mormon immigrants who found presidential administrations openly waging war on them.

Religious Persecution In America for Native Tribal people, as well as Christian against Christian is a way of life. Unfortunately, #LoveOneAnother is not as recognized as it should be. And the current Muslim Ban is a continuation of this bigotry.

Many times folk knowledge (Jokes, stories, tales passed from one person to the next), is believed as fact.

One faith besieged by this bigotry, that still lasts today;

1830, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faced persecution with members fleeing from New York to Ohio to Missouri

1838, Missouri Gov. Lilburn Boggs issued an “extermination order” calling for all Mormons to be “exterminated or driven from the state.”

1879, William Evarts wrote to US diplomats asking them to seek help from European governments to keep Mormon converts from traveling to the US

1881, “It is clear that the Mormon Kingdom in Utah is composed of foreigners and the children of foreigners,” Harper’s Magazine

1881, Mulder said, “It is an institution so absolutely un-American in all its requirements that it would die of its own infamies within twenty years, …”

1883, President Grover Cleveland asked Congress to “prevent the importation of Mormons into the country,” according to “Immigration and the ‘Mormon Question'” by William Mulder.

So, I am at a crossroads. President Trump called for a temporary “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,”

However… isn’t this bigotry? Yes. we need to secure our borders. Yes, we need to keep our families safe… However, don’t other people need to be kept safe as well.

As a country is ‘allegedly‘ founded on religious freedom… Don’t we have a responsibility? Perhaps we should love more. Keep our eyes open for ANYone who would hurt other’s. Regardless of religion. Can we do this? I believe we can!

Utah’s Republican Gov. Gary Herbert came out against the recent ban and referenced the Hayes administration’s attempts at curtailing Mormon immigration in a Facebook post, writing, “In 1879 under the direction of President Rutherford B. Hayes, the U.S. Secretary of State William Evarts requested that foreign governments no longer allow Mormons to emigrate to the United States in order to prevent the “large numbers of immigrants [who] come to our shores every year from the various countries of Europe for the avowed purpose of joining the Mormon community at Salt Lake.” Utah exists today because foreign countries refused to grant the wishes of a misguided president and his secretary of state.

I am the governor of a state that was settled by religious exiles who withstood persecution after persecution, including an extermination order from another state’s governor. In Utah, the First Amendment still matters. That will not change so long as I remain governor.”